América Tropical

Political controversy is what brought David Alfaro Siqueiros to Los Angeles. Political controversy is what got the mural, América Tropical, white-washed within months of it’s completion.

The word is out that Wednesday morning at El Pueblo (9 a.m.) Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa and Councilmember José Huizar along with representatives from the Getty Institute; Deborah Marrow, Timothy Whalen, and Joan Weinstein will announce a "multi-million dollar public-private partnership to complete conservation effort" that was started in 1988. In 2002, after the mural’s wall was seismically stabilized (1997) a cover was created. In 2005, a temporary reproduction of América Tropical was attached to that protective cover in anticipation of future conservation*.

While Siqueiros was in Los Angeles, he created three works, one of them was the 1932 Olvera Street mural. The historical significance of this work at El Pueblo is not just the political charged content, but the technique of applying pressure sprayed paint on an exterior wall. Many feel it is the start of an urban Mexican art in general, where a narrative of alienated ethnic (and indigenous) people are sympathetic subjects. From the City of LA’s website Olvera Street website:

As the visual and symbolic focus of the piece, an Indian peon representing oppression by United State imperialism is crucified on a double cross capped by an American eagle. A Mayan pyramid in the background is overrun by vegetation, while an armed Peruvian peasant and a Mexican campesino sit on a wall in the upper right corner, ready to defend themselves.

So emotionally charged was this allegorical imagery that within six months, a section of the mural visible from Olvera Street was painted out. Within a year, the work was completely covered. Portraying the struggle against imperialism was particularly offensive to Christine Sterling, the leading promoter of Olvera Street, presumably because it did not conform to her image of a docile and tranquil Mexican village.

Virtually forgotten for years, the mural was rediscovered in the late 1960s when the whitewash began to peel off. However, it was severely damaged shortly thereafter by exposure to the sun.

The 80-foot-long mural spoke of the exploitation of the Mexican worker. “The mural was intended to depict a kitchsy Mexican village scene for the benefit of tourists. Instead, Siqueiros made the central image of the mural a crucified figure.” wrote Professor Judith Baca, Muralist and founder of SPARC for an essay on PBS.com The process of fresco technique on new media accelerated the deterioration, but as the image began to appear, forty years later it’s metaphor took on a new significance. Baca, who studied mural painting at Taller Siquerios (Academy) early in her career continues by writing: “the image began to reemerge from the whitewash. We saw this as a symbol, an aparicion (religious apparition) coinciding with the growth of Los Angeles’s Mexican population and strength of the Chicano movement.”

The Mexican goverment’s introduction of producing murals speaking for social issues started after the Mexican Revolution and inspired the WPA to provide art with social content for public space. That an art movement was started at the same site where a city was founded is a poetic narrative of it’s own.